Russian bookworms meet in Krasnoyarsk

The Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk came alive in November as it played host to an annual book fair that this year featured American author Ian Frazier.

Source: Alexandra Guzeva

The population of Krasnoyarsk reached the
symbolic threshold of 1 million only five years ago. Wooden 19th century
buildings with 12-foot gates and carved wooden shutters sit side-by-side in the
city’s streets with brightly colored Stalin-era architecture, stadiums, and new
high-rise office towers. Only the Yenisey River, sometimes called Batyushka
(honored father) by the locals, provides a bit of fresh air.

In early November, however, a fresh wind of
cultural change arrived in the Siberian city: The seventh annual Krasnoyarsk Book Culture Fair. For many locals, it
was the highlight of the year.

They visited seminars; they asked
questions; they asked for advice. They came with their children to hear tales
about Curious George the monkey. They listened to famous poems read aloud; some
tried to read their own.

The most famous guest of the fair was Ian
Frazier, the bestselling American author of “Travels in Siberia,” which he
wrote after crisscrossing the vast Russian hinterland both in summer and in
winter. Frazier kept insisting that the
Siberian people he met during his travels were not nearly as austere and severe
as their popular image suggests.

"They were very friendly and curious.
They were very willing to talk to me,” the American writer said. “Maybe that is
because most of the places I visited were small towns, where people had never
seen an American before."

It turns out that people in other countries
know next to nothing about Siberia; they think of it as a very cold place, with
lots of prisons. In New York City, “Siberia” is what they call the worst tables
at the restaurants.

“To talk about all the other fascinating aspects of Siberia I
had to get across to break that concept of Siberia that it’s cold and prison," Frazier said. “You should explain what Yenisey is, what
Baikal is, and how beautiful these places are.” The author firmly believes that
Siberia is the place where Russia truly becomes Russia.

He says one of the most fascinating
Siberia-related stories is the story of the Decembrists, a group of
aristocratic revolutionaries who staged a failed uprising in St Petersburg in
December 1825, and were sentenced to forced labor in Siberia.

“I visited the Decembrists museum in
Irkutsk, and I was so impressed by their tragic fate that I have read everything about
the Decembrists. I even read the memoirs of Yakushkin in Russian with a
dictionary and it took me about 18 months."

The American author was not the only
highlight of the fair. The organizers of the event, the Prokhorov Fund, also
staged an opening performance that centered on the Printed Word, which has
always united different nations all over the world, bringing peace and prosperity.

Many of the meetings and presentations at
the fair focused on book translation. They included a master class for
translators from German into Russian. At the end of it, the participants
presented their sample translations of short literary texts. The master class
was the opening event of a new transcript program. According to Irina
Prokhorova, a cofounder of the Prokhorov Fund, the aim of the program is to
popularize Russian literature abroad.

Another important part of the fair’s
program was translating poetry, which is arguably the most difficult type of
translation. A discussion of poetry by Aleksei Parshchikov was attended by two
other poets, who translate Parshchikov into English and German: Eugene
Ostashevsky from New York City, and Hendrik Jackson from Berlin. They discussed
poems by Parshchikov and Jackson read samples of his
translations of the Russian poet into German.

Another meeting was devoted to the poet
Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, who worked in the 1990s with the American poet Lyn
Hejinian to establish the first cultural and poetic exchanges between the U.S.
and Russian.

Young Russian poets specializing in
translation presented the products of their experiments in Krasnoyarsk,
including several alternative translations of the same pieces of poetry. Pavel
Arsenyev, editor of the Translit almanac, said that “the theoretical rearmament
race is giving rise to a new avant-garde in poetry.”

The Night of the Museums, which was held in
cooperation with the Krasnoyarsk Museum Center, had young poets presenting
video performances. “Poetry is now interacting with other kinds of art,"
said the poet Nikita Safonov. “We are trying to demonstrate how multi-faceted
and versatile poetry can be, and how its possible translations can vary. We are
also trying to preserve the ambiguity originally intended by the authors."

Participants of the Krasnoyarsk Book Culture Fair
did not seem particularly worried by the predictions that traditional books are
disappearing and moving into the digital format. These worries, incidentally,
were one of the central topics of discussions at the Moscow International Book
Fair.

“The death of the printed book is still a
very long way off,” says Irina Prokhorova. “There are no problems with good
books; there are problems with their distribution. One of the key roles of the
Krasnoyarsk Book Culture Fair is to bring good books to the provinces, where people
still continue to read.”

That assertion was amply illustrated by the
rapidly emptying bookshelves at the fair, and by the happy visitors leaving the
event with armloads of books.

The Prokhorov Fund’s representatives said
it hoped the fair will encourage the local authorities to facilitate the
distribution of books in towns and villages, thereby setting a positive example
for other Russian provinces. In the end, it is not really important whether
people read printed books or use electronic gadgets to do the same; the
important thing is that they keep reading.